By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
WWE Raw Hits
Jey Uso vs. Seth Rollins for the World Heavyweight Championship: A hell of a match with great suspense for the high-stakes near falls. The company has a history of having cheap finishes to big matches that they don’t announce in advance. Nevertheless, some of the near falls were so well done that it was easy to get caught up in the moment and wonder if they might go with a title change to give the new Rollins’ faction more juice. It speaks to the value of Jey as a vulnerable babyface champion, as fans will think there’s a chance he will drop the title to credible challengers. The live crowd seemed more than content with a great match and the surprise return of Punk, even if they didn’t get an announced finish (more on that later). On a side note, a major Hit for Paul Heyman, who did a fabulous job of turning the fans against the new heel group after they were cheered last week.
Gunther and Pat McAfee: McAfee shined as he told the story that he would be the latest underestimated underdog to defeat Gunther. McAfee made a compelling case for this happening and had the live crowd with him. But Gunther took his turn on the mic and erased any chance I thought there might be of the company telling the big upset story again. Gunther showed extreme confidence, only not in the arrogant manner that he has in similar situations. His character came off laser-focused and hellbent on destroying McAfee. They made the most of the limited time they’ve had to set up this match, and I’m looking forward to it as much as anything on the Backlash card.
Women’s World Champion Iyo Sky vs. Roxanne Perez in a non-title match: A quality match. They told a nice story with Perez targeting the knee of Sky. There was a really nice sequence down the stretch with Sky stuffing a Pop Rox attempt, and then throwing a kick, only to have Perez catch her leg and perform a dragon screw leg whip. The pin reversals series that resulted in Sky winning was solid and let Perez look good in defeat. The post-match angle with Giulia attacking Sky put good heat on the heels heading into next week’s tag team match.
Rusev vs. Otis: A solid return match for Rusev, who beat a fellow superheavyweight clean, and then confirmed his heel status by refusing to release his Accolade finishing hold. And if that wasn’t enough, Rusev doubled down with a post-match attack on Otis and Akira Tozawa.
Penta vs. JD McDonagh: A momentum-building win for Penta heading into his Intercontinental Championship match with Dominik Mysterio at Backlash. Beating McDonagh doesn’t mean much, but it did in this case because he had to fight off interference from Finn Balor, Carlito, and Chad Gable. By the way, I wonder what was up with Balor speaking with Roxanne Perez in the background while Jey Uso was shown walking through the backstage area.
Lyra Valkyria and Becky Lynch: A soft Hit. There were a couple of corny verbal jabs, but there was more good than bad during this mic exchange. Lynch is doing her best to elevate Valkyria by selling her insults in a way that tells the audience that they are getting to her.
Sheamus vs. Austin Theory: A soft Hit for a solid comeback win for Sheamus. Grayson Waller gets an assist for the way he played off dumping the match on Austin Theory while trying to make it seem like he was doing his tag team partner a favor. Waller displayed great facial expressions, particularly when he couldn’t look Theory in the eye after Sheamus made his entrance.
WWE Raw Misses
No announced finish to the main event I didn’t mind the outside interference or the presumed disqualification finish. I just can’t stand that Vince McMahon’s bad habit of having major matches end without an announced finish has carried over to the current WWE creative team. It’s just plain cheap to have world championship matches end without an announced finish. If they were worried about the fans booing at the end of the Raw stream, then simply have Michael Cole announce the finish to the television audience, and then wait until the Netflix stream ends to have the ring announcer share it with the live crowd.
So I guess now that Heyman and Breakker are together Bron is letting Paul use his spay can.
*spray
I liked the Becky stuff a lot. As in, I don’t remember a specific women’s promo maybe ever, but the taking out the garbage stuff will stick with me. Very funny and effective, I thought.